The Slytherin and the Mudblood
by Jack Of Some Trades
Summary: Draco and Hermione have a conversation and come out of it hating each other slightly less than before. Not romance, not even friendship.


**__**

Disclaimer: There are parts of this. Oh, there are parts of this. I sincerely wish they were mine. The hilariousness shocks even me, and I wrote it. I mean, seriously. The love I feel for those parts go so far that I must speak in l33t.

Ph33r t3h phunny!

The walls around them seemed to be closing in, but Hermione knew that that wasn't the case. The ball of light she'd conjured still hung in the air, equidistant from all the walls. Still, she wanted out.

Now.

"Help!" she yelled at the ceiling. "Let me out of here!"

"Us," the other occupant of the room corrected. She ignored him.

"Let me out of here!" she yelled again. Finally, frustrated at her predicament, she pointed her wand at her throat and started to say, "Sonor—"

A hand clamped over her mouth before she could finish. "What in Merlin's name are you thinking, Mudblood?" Draco hissed into her ear. "Do you have any idea how that would echo?"

She shoved him away. "Keep your filthy hands off me, Malfoy," she spat, pointing her wand at him now.

"My hands? Filthy? You're one to talk, with that lanky Weasley pawing at you all the time," he smirked. A glare and a tremble of anger indicated that he'd hit his mark.

"Don't you dare talk about Ron like that, or I'll—"

"What, you'll have him spit slugs at me?"

Her wand now shook with suppressed rage. It was very obviously taking every ounce of self-control in her body not to destroy the blond Slytherin then and there. Draco decided not to press his luck and shut his mouth for a while. Finally, he grew weary of it. "So, Mudblood, any idea about getting us out of here?"

"I do have a name, Malfoy," Hermione said through gritted teeth. "And no, not yet. Maybe you should be doing something more than sitting in the corner and staring at the ceiling," she added as an afterthought.

"Why should I? It's your fault we're in here in the first place."

"It most certainly is not!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Oh really?" Draco drawled. "I seem to remember a certain bushy haired Mudblood fall into me and knock me through that—" he indicated one side of the room—"bloody wall!"

"You were in the middle of the hall when I turned the corner! It's not my fault you can't decide which part of the hallway makes you look prettier."

Draco snorted derisively. Hermione went on. "And furthermore, how was I to know that the wall I wasn't trying to fall into was a secret room that doesn't want to let us out?"

"It's a magical castle, Mudblood!" Draco exclaimed. "Didn't that get through your head when you were cramming your bushy head with books?"

Hermione fell silent and, for a moment, Draco thought he might have hurt her. And he didn't enjoy that thought as much as he should have.

He enjoyed it, mind, but not a lot.

"How's Potter?" he asked after a while. "Still half-insane from Diggory?"

Hermione crossed the small room and raised her hand to smack him. However, this time he was expecting it and caught her wrist in the air. "I'd advise against it, Granger."

She pulled her arm away and rubbed it, not in pain, but disgust. "You have no right to even mention either of their names. I'm not giving you anything to please your master with."

Draco sneered at her. "Don't be stupid. You think I care about the Dark Lord?"

This time Hermione snorted. "Oh, I'm sure you just _love_ Dumbledore."

"I abhor Dumbledore. But if it came between him and the Dark Lord, I'd choose the daft old fool."

With a look of disbelief, Hermione said, "And why, may I ask, is that?"

"I am Draco Malfoy," he said, as if that explained everything. "I will be no one's slave, regardless of what I might gain from it.

__

Be no one's slave, she thought. _I could use that for S.P.E.W._ Out loud, she said, "Of course. Pride. I should have guessed that would override greed."

"Not that I care what you think," said Draco, "but it's more than just pride. Self-preservation comes to mind as well."

"You-Know-Who would kill you as he would any of us," Hermione pointed out cheekily. Draco gave her a look of utter contempt.

"Not him, you idiot. Surely, with all the time you spend in the library, you're familiar with Aiusagi's Fourth Law of Balance?"

"It states," Hermione recited from memory, "that anytime a powerful force is destroyed, it will rise again in the form of another."

"Very good. Perhaps you're not as useless as I thought."

"What does that have to do with your views on You-Know-Who?" Hermione asked.

"Because even if you and Weasley and Potter and his little Weaslette bitch are killed, someone else will still be stupid enough to rise against the Dark Lord again. And again. And eventually, they'll win." Draco tilted his head upwards and continued. "I'd rather not be on the wrong side when it happens."

After listening to Draco, she found that she couldn't quite hate him as efficiently and wholly as she once had. The thought discomforted her, so she went to work trying to open the door again. Draco just shook his head and gazed into nothingness.

"What about your father?" Hermione said following a few minutes of quietness.

"What about him?"

"What does he think about your views on the Dark Lord?"

Draco scoffed. "My father doesn't even know I'm there until he need to make an appearance as the caring gentleman or when 'family honour' is in jeopardy. Or when marks come," he added with a grimace.

Despite herself, Hermione smiled the tiniest bit. Then she smiled wider, and wondered how she'd been so stupid. "Of course," she whispered. "_Alohomora!_" she cried, pointing her wand at the wall.

"That won't work, you know. Only works with regular locks."

Hermione growled at herself and her ignorance. Of course, she knew that. It was the stress, that was all.

"I doubt the one for magical locks will work either," Draco added as Hermione rose her wand again. 

Hermione breathed an exasperated sigh. "What would you suggest then?" she asked with tried patience.

Draco half opened an eye and lazily pointed his wand at the wall. "_Delatero,_" he said, and the wall faded and became transparent.

Hermione gave Draco a very angry look. "You could do that the whole time?" Draco nodded. "_Why didn't you?!_" she nearly shrieked.

"I really don't like Care of Magical Creatures. And any chance to drive a Mudblood closer to dropping out…"

Hermione shook her head, too relieved to be genuinely angry, grabbed her books and walked through the wall. They'd been in there long enough that class was over, but she still had to go apologise to Hagrid about not being there.

"Oh, and Hermione?" Draco said a bit awkwardly. Shocked by the use of her first name, Hermione stopped in her tracks.

"Yes?"

"I wanted you to know, that despite everything I've said about you…" he started, staring into Hermione's eyes."

"Yes?"

"…you're still a mongrel bitch and I hope someone spays you before there're more Weasleys running around."

Hermione's eyebrows raised high with fury, as did her knee. In pain, Draco fell to the ground, a thousand curses battling for supremacy on his lips.

**__**

Fin

**__**

Aiusagi's name is an inside joke. It's horribly translated though. But anyone who can guess what it means gets mentioned in the next chapter of the next fic I write. Which won't be this one, as she's a one parter.

And for the record, Malfoy ends up saying something like, "Mofbloodkindashibugowwww!"


End file.
